I've been reading through some of the posts on this board,  people claiming they get near 200 fps in multi. My question: how do you know you're getting 200 fps? It seems like the fps counter tops off at 90 fps in any game using the quake 3 engine..Maybe I'm using the wrong command? Regardless of what the resolution, graphics etc settings are set to it tops off at 90 fps.

My computer:
Athlon 2100+
gigabyte mobo (Kt333 chipset)
Corsair 512 megs of ram (pc2700)
MSI geforce4 4600TI
Windows XP Pro

You can change your maxfps to whatever you want. Most people who are tweeking just set it to 300 for the single player game. I think by default it's set to 85 so that's why you are seeing it top off around 90.

seta com_maxfps 200 for the multiplayer.

The single player is case sensitive and should be maxFPS.

Thanks for the info.

Does the server have to have the same settings in order for this to work? That is to say, if the server is set to the default will it limit the clients?

One more question...what does this setting actually do?
Say I set it to 300 and get 250 fps, is that a true reading of my frames per second?

no it has nothing to do with the server, and yes it's an accurate reading, setting it higher just allows it to go higher.

The reason for com_maxfps is to stop the client flooding the server with movement commands. If you have run at 300fps and have a 56k modem you will have problems.